Generations of dissidents have stamped their rebellion on walls, streets and public toilets. Generations of LSR students have silently subverted the fifty five minute class by occupying themselves in creative expression on desks.

Graffiti, the bane of the Establishment, and boon of countless bored students, could provide fodder for an intensive neurological study. Our brains are wired to produce rationality and coherence. How the process got hijacked midway is left to conjecture, but let there be no doubt: our minds are twisted and strange. Here’s why.

In the beginning God created the pre-oedipal Dada fodder. That would be us. Born free, born wild (in a manner of speaking).

Then we met the parents.

Then we become institutionalized.

And THEN… we went to college.

(Should that be enough? Need I go on? Do you not know what is to follow?)

Like a rubber band we were played by figures of Authority. They all took turns, and mocked our impotence. We waited, we watched, and in college, we produced this-

1) ‘DIE’

That out of the way, we moved on to other things. If Wordsworth and Co. would like you to believe that poetry is genius of the moment, then so would the undergraduates at LSR. If the thought appears, catch it before it flies away, or so would seem the motto. And judging by the artwork on the desks, it would seem we lack not the genius. A not-so-careful scrutiny will reveal pop art, elaborate squiggles, and the many wisdoms that pop to mind every now and then. The Tale of the Table; a relatively non-elitist occupation (esotericism is not an accusation that can be leveled against our art) of a fair section of elite LSR.Peruse at leisure.

Category 1(Miscellaneous Outpourings)

Wish you were here => Pink Floyd.

(The secret desire of an Undergraduate student revealed.)

‘Banana pancakes, Banana Pancakes’

‘I have momos…’’–> I want’

(Obviously hunger was uppermost on somebody’s mind)

‘Sneha’s pen is drunk’

(It seems that it is not just the flush that displays inappropriate behaviour in the English corridor.)

Certain teachers are a member of an exclusive body: CHTLL: Class Hungry Teachers League of LSR.

(Chiefly characterized by their refusal to cancel even one class)

‘I was here…

And you weren’t’

‘I wanna go to Cal.’

(Wanderlust)

‘Namaskar! Pranaam!

Aadab! Hello!

Good-evening!’

(We are multi-lingual and polite)

Category 2(philosophical)

‘I am Tormented and Tortured’

‘Death is only the beginning…’

‘Have you been there?’‘ ya how do you know?’

‘No social Formations’

‘BORN TO BE WILD!’

‘Love thy crooked neighbour

With thy crooked heart’

‘I hate people who tYp LyK dIs’

‘Start Studying’

(Valuable advice being dispensed)

‘Never tickle a sleeping dragon’

(Yeah, wake them up first…)

‘The tide is high

But I’m holding on

I’m going to do well

In these exams’

‘I have eloped with my dreams’

‘Plz dnt show your creativity on the tables.’

‘Why Not?‘ *So what are you doing expressing your own here!!’

Its FUN.’

‘Yeah! And neway, class is so boring.’

‘Stop Moral Policing’

(A five way conversation being carried out in absentia. The debate on graffiti shall live on.)

To counter my absolute blankness when faced with the books I am supposed to answer 75 marks worth questions on, I opened my notebooks. I had a total of four notebooks this year (no, make that five…I think) to take, well, notes, and I had picked them all with tender loving care. My favourite one was the one with the champagne glass on the cover. It’s appeal is obvious 😉 Then there was the breathtaking art on the red one, which I reserved for one of my ex-favourite teachers. The one with the abandonment and music on the cover was rather nice as well, but the point I am trying to make, is that these beauteous notebooks…contain no classnotes.

I flip page after page, and find graffiti, doodles, graffiti, maiden, graffiti and…you get the picture. So I thought I would dedicate this post to my class time activities. Let me reproduce here the things that held my attention, while the rest of the class was (presumably) engaged in scholarly pursuit.

29/02/08 (I have a habit of obsessively dating my ‘notes’) : In parentheses- Chucked out of previous two classes for not reading text *grin*

This would be the Conrad class, where for about 3-4 four classes the teacher taught 5 out of some 40 students, because the rest hadn’t read Heart of Darkness, teehee.

15/02/08 (This is in Pallavi’s handwriting; we were mocking something, but I forgot what…) ‘Every woman needs her daily male’

22/01/08 sees the pictoral, stick figure representation of The Life of A. Parthosarathy, and involves an attempt of said gentleman to understand his solitude…’cept there’s a power-cut and he forgets the question. I shall try and post a pic of it sometime.

29/01/08: A stylized ‘REAPERS REPOSE’. Two Eddies on the page, and the inevitable SCREAM FOR ME MUMBAI!!! Iron Maiden Somewhere Back in Time.

17/01/08: “Give me freedom, or kill me!”

20/09/07: In a Swift class, discussing the living dead, the Struldbrugs in Gulliver’s Travels – ‘Dead-in-Law’ Har har har.

4/12/07: I was apparently in a ‘familial’ mood. Figures drawn of Eddie’s Mother, and Harlequin’s brother.

17/01/ 08: scribbled along the margin top of the page- ‘sleepy sleepy sleepy Gray sleepy sleepy sleepy’. This was during a lecture on Thomas Gray, delivered by a teacher who is quite good, but unfortunately, possesses quite a soporific drone 🙂

4/12/07(etched in blood, it says): (Hertfordshire) doesn’t get Maiden… Mumbai does. *GRIN* MODERN MAN fell asleep. Eddie woke him up and said “Will you scream for Bangalore? I am trying to shift the MAIDEN…INDIA…2008 venue.”

30/10/07: In a DH Lawrence Sons and Lovers class- ‘Mother did actually want to be a man’. ‘ Miriam…books did not matter to her’. (In my defense: I was busy admiring graffiti on desks in all DH Lawrence classes)

Hindustan Times occasionally manages to nail it 😀 I am talking, ofcourse, about the ‘Quote Misquote‘ feature on their editorial page, where they () quote someone (usually famous) and take the piss with a What he/she really meant and What he/she definitely didn’t column. Today’s features Modi.

” Do you want Modi to be CM?

Do you trust Modi?

Do you love Modi?

Don’t you think Modi lives only for Gujarat”

What he really meant

Who’s your daddy? Who’s your daddy? Who’s your daddy?

What he definitely didn’t

I must say it’s odd to refer to myself in the third person singular, but it makes me less of an ego-centric person, doesn’t it? I hope you answered yes,yes and yes to the questions on your left(referring to the quotes) , otherwise I’m afraid Modi will be very, very upset.

I hope the bastard doesn’t win the elections, but I’m afraid he will. I am finding it quite hard to believe how even after Tehelka’s systematic expose(yes,yes, I know we all knew anyway, but this just seems to put it on a platter, doesn’t it?) NOTHING is happening with regard to him.